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Chowstaker’s 3rd Birthday Paleo Book Giveaway

Yup, it’s been 3 years (to the day) since we went live with our paleo recipe sharing site.

Ron here. It all started at the kitchen table one evening (like so many good things). Patty had been uploading photos and links from her food blog to a couple of recipe sharing websites, but she got a few rejections simply because the photo wasn’t perfect. Their criteria for accepting a recipe was mainly based on the quality of the photo, not the food. So she says, “Ron, I need a recipe sharing website that’s all about real food and not just cupcakes and pretty pictures”. Without thinking too much about the consequences I replied, “As you wish, buttercup!” (loose paraphrase).

Between then and now we have worked with and met many talented, kind and generous people in the paleo community. We’ve become educated on the nuances of the different versions of paleo and other healing diets. We’ve read some incredible stories of recovery that provides even more motivation for us to keep doing what we do. And just yesterday we added the 17,000th recipe! Patty has personally vetted every one of them, including 1000’s more that didn’t quite make the cut. But we’re just getting started and have tons of ideas for the coming years! We’ve added gardenstalker and published the 1st gardening contribution yesterday as well. We know many of you are avid organic gardeners or at least interested in growing your own food. We are committed to helping the paleo, real food community grow and making stalkerville one of your favorite paleo lifestyle resources on the web.

So to celebrate, we’re giving away 3 (one for each year) bundles of some of our favorite paleo books. Many of these were provided by Victory Belt Publishing, who publishes more paleo related books than any other company and without them far fewer people would know about this thing called “paleo”.

The giveaway will run from today (Feb 9, 2014) through Sunday Feb 16th, 2014 at midnight EST. The 3 people with the most points at the end of the contest will get one of the bundles. The person with the most points will get the bundle of their choice, the person with the 2nd most points will get to choose from the remaining 2 bundles. And it’s pretty obvious what the person with the 3rd most points gets. This contest is open to all readers, but any winners outside the US will be sent an Amazon gift card equal to the value of the bundle instead of the actual books.

Here’s how you can accumulate points:

For 5 points – Tell us (in the comments below) something that we can do to make the site more useful or something you think we’re doing pretty good already! And then tell us which bundle you’d like to win.
For 2 points – Like us on Facebook
For 2 points – Follow us on Twitter
For 2 points – Share this giveaway on Pinterest by pinning the image of one of the bundles.
For 1 point – Tweet about the giveaway. You can do this once each day for a total of 8 points.
For 1 point – Tell people about Stalkerville anyway you see fit! Share on Facebook, Google+, Reddit, Stumbleupon, anywhere. Or add a badge to your blog or website. Sign up for our newsletter or anything else that will help people find us. Just be sure to leave an additional comment for each action taken, and each of those are worth 1 point. There’s no limit on this at all!

We’re especially looking forward to hearing your thoughts and ideas on how we can better serve the paleo community.

138 Responses to Chowstaker’s 3rd Birthday Paleo Book Giveaway

As someone who attempts to follow Paleo when possible, I was actually unaware of this site without finding recipes on Pinterest that linked here. Please continue to cross promote this site on all social media linked with Paleo to maximize visibility.

I love your daily newsletters, I read them with breakfast and they’re always giving me great ideas for meal planning! I also think you could link to other contents of your site and not just the recipes via your newsletter – like when you do featured blogger profiles, book reviews, Top 10 recipe round ups, etc. I almost never think to go to those articles of the site and forget there’s other content. Other than that, I think you’re doing a terrific job and am excited to see you keep on growing!

I just started paleo and no sugar do to digestive problems and new to cooking this way, thus my current meals are bland at the present. I stumbled upon chowstalker from civilized caveman and am thrilled mieces to pieces of the quantity and quality of recipes you have to offer. Your site is easy to understand and maneuver! I love that you have pictures for each recipe too!
I think this is a fantastic website with beneficial information!
Bundle 1 an 2 would be preferred, but would be grateful for any!
I have posted and followed on facebook, Twitter, Pinterest your website and book bundle offer.
Thank you very much for your consideration!
Molly (newbee)

As some trying to follow the auto-immune protocol, I love that you have the recipes also categorized by specific dietary considerations! And I’d love to win Bundle #2 please! I will def be posting on FB, Twitter, and Pinterest! Thanks!

Thanks Brista, glad you found us! We’re definitely working to make sure the tags and categories are accurate. And we’ll keeping doing everything we can to let people know about the site. Appreciate your help!

Would love to win #3 I have followed you site since the beginning. Never thought to sign up for your newsletter until I read one of the comments above. Looking forward to receiving the newsletter. Keep up the awesome site. Many thanks!!

Thank you Jen for sticking with us through the many changes over the years! Our daily recipe newsletter features 10 of the recipes that were added to the site the day before but we’re still working on getting into a groove with the other 2 options…stay tuned!

I’d be giddy with any! I think I’d cross my fingers for #2 though so I can gift The Paleo Approach to my sister. I already have my copy Spreading the love and knowledge! I just recently found Stalkerville. It’s been a fantastic source of inspiration on those days where I’m just drawing a blank in the kitchen. I’ve also had fun submitting a few of my own recipes.

We should be on Instagram so thanks for the reminder! We’re working on a few ways to make the admin side of things less time consuming and then we’ll have more time to work on our social media skills and activity. Definitely room for improvement there!

Well good Karen, because between Patty and I we already have a list a mile long! We think it works pretty well too, but since we’re so close to it, sometimes we can’t see the obvious so we have to ask. We’re glad it inspires you!

I think the whole site is just wonderful. My blog has gotten a lot of traffic since I started posting on here. I love that you don’t care about the quality of a photo but the quality of the food. If I win I would like the first bundle.

We agree Sue! We’re constantly in awe at the recipes that we get to share from so many talented cooks, and Melissa Joulwan was one of the very first people to share her recipes with us. She’s one of the most gifted and lovable people in the paleo community.

Please don’t change a thing….it is utter deliciousness to look at all the wonderful Paleo recipes in one place….it’s my first go to site, however I had never registered until today. My family and I just started living the Paleo lifestyle 2 months ago….with a family of 5, finding a place for recipes is number 1….I can easily have the kids look through and select the ones that jump out at them….only downside is that they automatically go for all the sweet-based ones…but i can’t blame them with the pictures that are posted….they almost yell…”make me”.

I love Bundle #3…most of those books have been on my “wish” list for a while now.

That’s great that your whole family is on board! Your kids are probably too smart for this to work, but if you want to filter out the desserts, let them browse chowstalker only: http://stalkerville.net/site/chow/. Many people want to avoid being tempted by all those treats so that’s why we initially had 2 separate sites and even after combining Chowstalker and Dessertstalker under one roof (Stalkerville) we still provide ways to filter them out. The advanced search can also exclude desserts or any other dish type, ingredient, etc.

Hi Ron and Patty, and congrats on your wonderful site anniversary! I’m new to the community, and fairly new to Paleo, and I love both. As others have already said, please don’t change a thing. I too had one site turn down one of my photos of my favorite fish dish; thank you for posting it! I’m moving soon and hope to have space for at least container gardening, so can’t wait to contribute to the new gardenstalker category. Keep up the great work and encouragement!! And thanks for the awesome give-away!!

I didn’t quite understand what to do for the last entry. Does it mean share here in the comments what we did to Tell people about Stalkerville! or in the little comment box provided on the entry form only?

it would be great if you didn’t have to go through so many websites to get to the actual recipe. it’s great to have all of these fabulous recipes in one place, but you first have to get to the chowstalker site, then click on the link to get to the blog where that recipe is posted. also, being able to pin right from the initial chowstalker site instead of clicking all the way through to the blog would be very helpful. thanks!

Thanks for sharing that. We hear ya, and that is the one drawback with not having the full recipe on the site.

But here’s the reason that we’re set up the way we are. If the full recipes were here, you wouldn’t need to visit the other blogs and sites. If we don’t drive traffic to the other blogs and websites, many would stop contributing. We think the model we have in place is what has kept so many contributors coming back and helped us create what we believe is the largest directory (over 17,000 at this time) of vetted paleo/primal recipes on the web! Many, many people pin directly from chowstalker and even though it does take an extra click it helps support our site & the contributor’s website too. They can also add to the recipe to their favorites while here on chowstalker.

But your point is very valid and that is why we do not include submissions that say “click here for the recipe” nor do we publish recipe round-ups. The details of the recipe must be at the URL that is shared. with us. However, we’ve always had plans to open up full recipe submissions for people who don’t have blogs (it just hasn’t bubbled to the top of the to-do list yet) but we will have some full recipes on the site in the near future. But hopefully an extra click for most recipes will still be worth it!

I love the new design! You guys are doing a really good job at keeping all the all of the diet categories organised. When I found some recipes that were incorrectly labeled Patty was really quick to make the changes.

I can’t believe I had never even heard of this site in all my travels over the years! In fact, I only recently heard about it when Melissa Joulwan retweeted about the give away. So after cruising around the site, I would advise about 2 things… more tags for the meals (like 21dsd or whole30 and other ones) also, more promoting of the site as I’ve never heard of it before.

Glad you finally found us! Thanks for the suggestions We’re working on both of those. We definitely need to step up our promoting, and this giveaway is a step in that direction. And we really appreciate you sharing the site with others…that’s a big help too!!

I love the new category features and the option to sort by the most popular recipes. I would love an easier way to save recipes. Also, I always appreciated how Foodgawker and other similar sites showed the number of views/likes for each recipe. It was just an interesting gauge.

Glad you like those features! We display the number of times a recipes has been added to favorites (the number next to the heart) but adding more stats is on our to-do list. Great suggestion.

And just in case anyone doesn’t know, when you click on the heart, this adds it to your favorite page which is on the menu under your name. To remove it from your favorites, you just click the heart again and refresh the page. (You have to be registered and logged in for this feature.)

Holy smokes Peter, you just made Ron’s day! That submit form has been a ton of work for him and some people aren’t quite as enthusiastic about it but it’s necessary if we’re going to make the advanced search work properly.

About the monthly interview, we’ve done that off and on (you’ll see a few recent ones on the blog (http://stalkerville.net/articles/) but it’s obvious we’re not doing a good job letting people know about it. But we definitely have plans to bring that back, and hopefully sooner rather than later. Thanks for the push in that direction.

It’s understandable why so many contests are not global with the shipping and logistics but the possibility of you doing the silly dance makes it worth it.

And thank you so much for your enthusiasm, kind words and for the great recipes you’ve let us share!

Happy Birthday! When I first found Chowstalker, I didn’t realize Patty was the one behind Following my Nose. Your post on Non-Dairy Coffee Creamer was one of the first that led me to paleo and helped me quit drinking Coffeemate! So, thank you for that and thank you for bringing traffic to my site. I love all of the new changes and how easy it is to submit a recipe.

Um….well, I want Eat the Yolks from bundle #1, The Ancestral Table from #2, and Nom Nom Paleo from #3! I’d be happy with any, but I’d have to go with #2 because I need all of those except The Paleo Approach. Thanks for the giveaway and for all that you do!

Wow Jacqueline, that’s really neat! I used Cinnamon Vanilla Coffeemate for a long time and didn’t think I could give it up but that creamer did the trick for me too…lucky experiment. We’re thrilled that you like the changes and love that we get to help people find sites like yours!

It’s there in the advanced search: Here’s a link.
And we do have plenty of vegan recipes on the site however most are side dishes or desserts because not too many people try to do paleo and vegan. But since you want these paleo books, you must be trying both at the same time…is that correct? . If so, that is really interesting and I hope it’s working well for you.

I love the Pinterest board, honestly. I live there and I pin a ton of your stuff!! I suppose my only suggestion is my blog posts? Though, the point of the site is to drive traffic to people already blogging… so.. yeah, just keep up the good work! As for the bundle, I’ll echo so many here, I’d love any! But #2 is my pick as I’m fighting an autoimmune disease and would love to get my hands on Sarah’s book.

If you select advanced search, and filter by Whole30 (or any other diet), then you can filter by all of the above! We’re still tweaking it and working on getting all of the tags added but the logic is in place.

Thanks!! We do have ratings! If you click on the “eye” on the gallery card, it takes you to the recipe detail page where you can rate the recipe or flag-it if something is wrong, such as dead link, bad tags, etc. But the fact that you don’t know we have ratings means we have some work to do.

Just found out about you guys through Domestic Man…I am blown away by the bounty of information your site has to offer…I really have not had an opportunity to scour your site…but know that it will be an incredible resource for our life…thank you so much for this book giveaway…bundle #2 is probably the one that I would want the most, but they all look awesome…thanks again!

Happy Birthday!! I love what you do. One thing that I love about the site is how easy it is to find a specific recipe or type of recipe. One thing I would like to see is an extra category for diabetic friendly recipes. My brother in law has a very restricted diet because of diabetes and I would like to be able to find some real food recipes that he can eat.

In the mean time, the advanced search should provide some good recipes for your brother-in-law. You can include OR exclude any ingredient as needed by dish type or diet or even cuisine . Thanks for sharing and contributing to the site!

This site is AMAZING! I just came across it via twitter – what a fantastic resource. Paleo is new to me, however in less than two months this lifestyle has changed my health for the better. Happy Birthday & thanks for your hard work.

I can’t remember how exactly I came across your site, but now I look at it all the time! It’s especially helpful for getting dinner ideas for the week when I don’t already have something in mind. I also often use it to find new side dish inspirations, especially for veggies. Thanks for the hard work!

Huge fan of the website! It is my “go to” when I am trying to figure out what to cook for both meals and snacks. My diet has improved significantly since discovering Chowstalker because you make it so easy to find nutritious recipes that fit within the Paleo diet that I try to follow. Thank you!

All three bundles include books that are on my wishlist so I would be very happy to win any one of the three.

Definitely agree with the cross posting. I love seeing the recipes pop up in my Facebook feed, as well as on pinterest. The search function is absolutely AWESOME and I often turn to chowstalker when I need ideas and recipes. Awesome. And love bundle 2… although, it has to be said ALL the bundles are awesome and I own at least one if not two books from each bundle already!!

ALL of these books look fantastic – it’s hard to choose! I think I’d go with #1, with #3 as a close second. Thanks for the great website – it’s awesome that there is place to redirect folks towards healthier and more creative cuisine. (: